This is the autobiographical story of Lulu Wang's adolescence in the early seventies in China, at the height of Mao's Cultural Revolution. Through the character of Lian, Lulu Wang tells the heartrending tale of her own spiritual, emotional and sexual awakening in some of the most hostile circumstances ever to confront humanity.
Lian is the daughter of intellectuals - high in the traditional caste system but the lowest class under Mao. At school she befriends Kim, a girl from the Beijing slums who is persecuted by the caste-conscious students, but they are separated when Lian's father is transferred to a remote province and her mother sent to a re-education camp. Joining her there, Lian comes into contact with China's foremost scientists, artists and scholars, including a brilliant historian who helps her distinguish truth form propaganda. In a quiet spot of a pond she calls her Lily Theatre, she recites what she has leant to an audience of crickets and frogs, finding an outlet for her fear, anger and confusion and a refuge from the cruelty of daily life.
When Lian eventually returns to her old school and to Kim, the principles of the Lily Theatre become increasingly hard to maintain as she tries to find friendship and love, and as a new wave of terror envelops the country. But if she learns to live with lies, in her heart she stays true to herself and, her spirit unbroken, survives.
This is a beautifully written and inspiring account of one woman's rites of passage, which gives an intimate insight into the reality of Communist China.
